Butler Community Arts School Adds 3 New Programs

The Butler Community Arts School will introduce three new programs in 2016—youth theater, music composition for high school students, and summer ballet intensive for pre-professional dancers.

“We added these new programs for 2016 because the community has been asking,” said Karen Thickstun, Director of the Butler Community Arts School. “We have a strong history of providing high-quality music programs to the greater Indianapolis community utilizing Butler students and faculty. These offerings will broaden our reach and allow more youths to participate in our arts programming.”

For questions and registration information, email the Butler Community Arts School at bcas@butler.edu or call 317-940-5500.

More information about each program follows.

-Butler Youth Theatre Program, for ages 9-14, will allow students to explore the building blocks of theatre under the direction of Butler Theatre faculty and alumni. No prior experience is necessary.

The program will run for nine Saturdays beginning January 16—9:00-10:15 AM for ages 9-11 and 10:30-noon for ages 12-14—at in Lilly Hall on the Butler campus.The cost is $135 for students 9-11 and $145 for students 12-14.

Both sessions end with a performance by each group.

-Butler Youth Composition Program, for students 14-18, is a three-session workshop presented by Butler composition majors and graduate students under the director of Professor of Music Michael Schelle. No prior composition experience is required, but students must have one year of prior study on a musical instrument or voice and be involved in a music program or lessons.

The sessions will take place from 1:00-2:30 PM January 23, February 13, and March 5 in Lilly Hall on the Butler campus, with a final performance on March 19.

Tuition is $55.

-Summer Ballet Intensive, a three-week intensive program for pre-professional dancers ages 13-18, will take place from July 10-30. The tuition is $3,000, which includes room and three meals a day. A commuter option is available.

Dance Professor Marek Cholewa will serve as the Artistic Director of the program, which will have a classical ballet focus with additional classes in pas de deux, character, modern, jazz, and repertoire. The program will conclude with a final performance on Saturday, July 30.

The Dance Department has announced the establishment of a Butler Dance scholarship for a promising young dancer who attends this summer intensive program. Eligibility requirements will be included in the registration materials. Registration is at butler.edu/bcas.

Media contact:
Marc Allanmallan@butler.edu
317-940-9822

Butler Community Arts School Adds 3 New Programs

JCA, Indiana Arts Commission Forge Partnership

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PUBLISHED ON Nov 02 2015

Butler University’s Jordan College of the Arts has forged a partnership with the Indiana Arts Commission to become the IAC regional granting office for central Indiana, covering Boone, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Johnson, Marion, and Shelby Counties.

Butler’s role through 2017 will be to set up independent citizen advisory panels that will review grant applications. The citizen panels adjudicate and score grant applications, and the state awards the grant funds. Last year, the state awarded about $400,000 in grants to Indianapolis-area arts groups.

“We are excited about having the Jordan College of the Arts at Butler University join this new partnership arrangement for Region 7,” IAC Executive Director Lewis C. Ricci said. “The College has a long history in, and commitment to, the arts in this region.”

Jordan College faculty and staff will also provide technical assistance and guidance to on public funding to artists and arts organizations of all sizes.

“I’m excited for the opportunity this will provide for our students,” said Susan Zurbuchen, Associate Professor of Arts Administration. “The students will learn about how public money is disbursed, and they’ll have hands-on opportunities to be part of the process.”

Zurbuchen said she believes no other undergraduate arts administration program has such a hand in grant administration.

Ronald Caltabiano, Dean of Butler’s Jordan College of the Arts, said the partnership with the Indiana Arts Commission “helps to strengthen our academic programming and further reinforces Butler University’s role as a nexus for arts in central Indiana. This is a tremendous opportunity for our students and for Butler.”

On Theatre Day, All of Butler's a Stage

Michael McClellan, a senior at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, wants to be a filmmaker. But when he heard about Butler’s first-ever Theatre Day on September 19, he couldn’t resist signing up.

Along with over 100 other high school students from Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana, McClellan was able to experience a day in the life of a Butler theatre student.

He says the one-on-one instruction with professors and college students inspired him to be himself both onstage and off.

“They were talking about, ‘We don’t want to see your characters, cause anyone can do a character. We want to see who you are and what you can bring to this college,’” he said.

Theatre Day was the brainchild of LaKisha Cooper, an administrative assistant in Butler’s Theatre Department. She dreamed up the idea as a way to expose high school students to the program while allowing Butler’s theatre majors to shine.

“Our students don’t realize the great work they do, and I wanted others to see that,” she said. “This is a great place to go to school.”

Theatre major Kristen Gibbs ’18 agrees. She says the day was the perfect opportunity for high school students to experience actual theatre classes with college professors - an opportunity she wishes she could have had.

“During my audition, they didn’t have enough time to tell us everything that was in the curriculum,” she said. “I feel like coming here on this day and getting a little taste of everything, even if it was just a snapshot, I feel like that would have benefitted me a lot.”

In a makeup class, students were able to paint each other’s faces like zombies. In an acting class, professor Elaina Artemiev led students through an exercise, and voice, movement and lighting classes completed the lineup.

At the end of the day, a few lucky ninth- through 12th-graders were picked out of the crowd to perform their monologues for three professors in a mock “audition” in the Schrott Center.

After each performance, students applauded their peers with supportive whoops and cheers. The professors provided instructive criticism and tips for the students to improve their monologues, providing the perfect finale to an educational day.

“This is a great process to let them see an audition,” Adam Bridges ’18 said. “It’s really cool because it’s terrifying the first time you do an audition process.”

And although the day was jam packed with educational sessions, according to Gibbs and Bridges, the high schoolers’ favorite part of the day wasn’t a particular class or session.

Rather, it was waffle day in the cafeteria. On Theatre Day, even Atherton’s a stage.

Introducing the Hinkle Academy, a New Graduate Program

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PUBLISHED ON Jul 22 2015

Graduate students looking to become leaders in wellness, sport, and allied fields now have a new option: the Hinkle Academy, a joint online venture of Butler University’s Department of Athletics, College of Education, and Health and Recreation Complex.

The program begins in the fall, offering 12 credits of graduate coursework spread out over 11 months. Classes will expose students to a variety of sport and wellness careers and lead to a 12-hour certificate that can be used toward a Master’s in Effective Teaching and Leadership at Butler or a graduate degree elsewhere.

“In my world of rec sports, the competition is such that if you don’t have a master’s, you’re really behind the eight-ball,” said Scott Peden, Butler’s Director of Recreation. “It’s an incredibly competitive marketplace for jobs.”

Subject areas in the Hinkle Academy coursework begin with an investigation of the Butler Way ethos for effective leadership, establishing culture, and building community. Coursework will include marketing, special events, program planning, and facilities management. “Regardless of what specific branch you go into in wellness, you’re going to have to know budgeting and finance and sponsorships and legal aspects and a boatload of specific topics,” Peden said. “Those are good foundational competencies to have, regardless.”

Hinkle Academy also will include the Butler/Indy Lab, a three-day residential workshop at Butler University and in Indianapolis, during which students will be able to meet the people—and tour the organizations and facilities—that drive Indianapolis’s reputation as a sports capital.

A capstone, eight-week summer apprenticeship can be completed in a student’s home organization or community.

"The Hinkle Academy provides a unique portal for candidates with shared interests in education, sport, and wellness and diverse backgrounds, careers, and goals to study leadership through the lens of the Butler Way," College of Education Associate Professor Mindy Welch said.

The certificate work is appropriate for current and future Butler alumni; licensed teachers and coaches in all sports at all levels; volunteer coaches affiliated with schools, churches, community centers, and fitness centers; professionals employed in sport and wellness; and individuals seeking career change or entrepreneurial opportunities in education, sports, athlete development, fitness, recreation, and wellness.

Michael Freeman, Butler’s Associate Athletic Director for External Operations, said the online coursework and flexibility of the program schedule “should provide insight and education on how there are many ways to get the job done in sport.”

“It can work for all types of people, from recent grads looking to break in to sport, folks looking for a career change or those already in sport and looking for self-improvement,” he said. "We could see a very diverse group of students.”

Peden said having all classes online is perfect for people who are in the workforce and can’t take the time to return to school for two years.

“There are a lot of students who are graduating from undergraduate coursework and looking to see what’s next,” he said. “This is a unique niche.”